well when you think about it viral are a virus race , and collective are a form of cyborg or those borg things in starwars or w/e , they should be able to overide eachother , virus can get into computers , and computers can remove virus`s , so they should just be able to alter them straight off the bat without undoing them at all if your gona go with that
but then you need to think about game balancing , theres lots of virals , virals can explore , virals can make godlike dreamlike collective colonies , this would promote agri collective / planet hoarding collectives , i dont believe this was the intetion of the race when all this was decided , although this itself would be a challenge with rewards seems they cant explore yet have sexy agri income..
i think im rambling so ill shhh... now ^_^